


Deadly by Design

by Solitaire_Dreams



Series: The Support Series (FE3H) [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Also the teen rating is kind of overkill, Fanon support chain, Swearing, There's only:, once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-08 05:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitaire_Dreams/pseuds/Solitaire_Dreams
Summary: Persona Emblem Social Links: The Sequel  ~ Jeritza (the Death Knight) and ManuelaManuela is going to speak her mind and chew out that man for stabbing her five years ago. But looking back, maybe she shouldn't have gone after drinking. Will she ever get her apology among the feelings of awkwardness and bitterness?
Relationships: Jeritza von Hrym & Manuela Casagranda
Series: The Support Series (FE3H) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539997
Kudos: 19





	1. C-Rank

Jeritza tried his best to sleep, but as always the relief of unconsciousness eluded him. It was nightfall, and despite the lack of windows in his quarters, his body understood darkness overtook the Monastery. Specifically, the Death Knight knew the shadows were out and his voice was louder than ever, clawing to escape the mental chains Jeritza had placed on him. He was being kept at bay, but not without sacrificing sleep.

“At least I can still rest somewhat,” Jeritza whispered to nobody in particular. “If my mind cannot rest, I will force my body to.”

Those words seemed to summon some entity who was hell-bent on proving him wrong, because incessant knocking started from outside his door. He was tempted to ignore it, but he did not know if it was news about some sort of attack.

He sighed as he got up to open the door. If it was an attack, he could at least permit the Death Knight to quell his blood lust for tonight.

He opened the door only to be faced with one of the most monstrous sights he had not considered. The former professor Manuela was leaning against the door frame with a wine bottle in hand.

And she looked furious.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Manuela began to question whether this was a good idea. Not coming to Jeritza's dorm room—though she did admit that being alone around a known merciless killer was a bit ill-advised—but the fact she decided to drink some “liquid courage” before showing up. Combined with her poor mood about that man from a couple of days ago, she may have overdone it. Just a bit.

“Good afternoon you wretched man.” she spoke in a mix of a snarl and slur.

“It's the middle of the night.” Jeritza couldn't help but correct her.

“Don't correct me.” she ordered, pointing her bottle like an accusatory finger. “Act like a gentleman for once in your life.”

_I don't think I can act like your definition of “gentleman”,_ he thought, already feeling the Death Knight become more awake.

After a long and awkward pause stretched between them, he decided to simply close the door. Before he could finish though, Manuela put her hand on the wooden barrier and slammed it back open with a large thud. Jeritza would have been paranoid about someone coming to investigate, but his quarters was in a secluded area of the monastery; chosen in the event that his devil spawned and he couldn't control it.

She barged into the centre of the room, her face burning flame red: “Well? Do it already!”

Jeritza's eyebrows drew together in confusion and annoyance. “You have given no direction.”

“Sure, I did.” she responded in a tone that made it sound like he was five. The same tone his father would use whenever he asked about his mother and sister. His fist clenched. “Apologize to me!”

“For what?” he asked, the first sparks of anger igniting in his voice.

“For nearly stabbing to me to death!” She swung the bottle just centimetres away from his chest. He noticed it was mostly empty as it passed. “And you ruined my dress. It was coated in blood.”

“The dress is what you're concerned about?”

“Well, if I'm already going to get one apology; I might as well get all of them!” She took a step closer, the liquor on her breath punctuating her statements. “I get that your skills in the art of trying to murder people was good enough for you to join the Kingdom army,” _Imperial_, he mentally corrected again. “But that doesn't mean you can't just get away without apologizing for your god-awful behaviour towards me.”

“Then, I'm sorry.” he stated, believing the problem would be resolved.

He was wrong as her eyes darkened and she slammed down her bottle on his dresser table, hard enough he thought it would break. She then approached him again, adjusting her dress straps and walking him into a corner.

He hated this feeling that overcame him. It felt like he was an animal trapped in a cage. A hunter and its prey, seeking not only to find sustenance but play with its food.

Speaking of a hunter, the Death Knight grew louder inside his head. “You know, nobody can hear us in this room. You chose one away from other people for a reason.”

“What are you implying?” he asked the voice internally, not having the time to consider his angle.

“We could finish the job, of course. Kill this greedy wretch before anyone would be the wiser.” he proposed in his most tempting voice.

Manuela's voice cut into his thoughts, gritting out the word: “Bullshit.”

She propped an arm against the wall, truly boxing him in as his senses heightened in fear. Yet his ears could no longer hear her words, drowned out by cackling laughter.

“I've been around many men in my life." she continued undeterred. "I know how to read a good chunk of their faces. And lucky for me, you're an open book.”

“I'm not going to kill an ally!” he screamed back at the vengeful abyss, struggling to keep the lid on.

“You better not,” Manuela ordered, and Jeritza just realized he spoke aloud. “And you better give me a sincere apology or I'm not leaving. This time, with payment for my ruined dress.” She stood back and crossed her arms across her chest in defiance.

If the Death Knight was like a stream, he was beginning to overflow through his dam. The force of holding him back became physical as he got a splitting headache.

He pressed against the sides of his head as he leaned down, breaking away from her piercing gaze, choking out the words: “Leave now.”

This only served to infuriate her more. “You didn't listen to a damn word I said! Don't you have any honour?”

He pushed her aside as she crashed into the wall. She was able to recover her footing quite quickly for someone in her state and began to stomp right back over to him. But she was stopped short by her liquor bottle—when had she put that down?—whizzing by her face before crashing into the wall. This time it shattered into countless pieces, strewn across an abandoned pastry.

Something about the crash awoke the reasonable part of Manuela locked away behind the alcohol infused in her bloodstream. She looked with more alert eyes at the situation in front of her, and saw Jeritza—the intimidating Death Knight—curled up in a ball on the ground like an angry cat. He seemed to thrash around involuntarily like he suffered spasms beyond his control.

When he said once again: “Leave,” she didn't stop to question what the hell she had done before the bottle shattered. Her self-preservation instincts kicked in and she walked out the door, closing it firmly shut behind her.

Finally alone, Jeritza allowed the chains to break apart.


	2. B-Rank

After that bizarre experience, Manuela told herself she would head straight back to confront Jeritza and his strange behaviour as soon as the sun rose. But the sun rose and night fell multiple times since that odd encounter and she had not willed herself to face him again.

Once she left the room that night she headed back to her own quarters to sleep through her incoming hangover, but when she awoke memories of that night flashed back to her like a picture book. Her knocking rapidly on the door, barging straight into his room during the middle of the night, adjusting her dress strap before pinning him against the wall, nearly falling on top of his bed.

The memories were sharp and pointed as arrows from an archer, assaulting her with familiar feelings of shame and regret.

She knew that nothing actually would have happened between them; her clothes were still perfectly on and the feeling of rage was strong enough to burn through the alcohol induced haze. Yet, she had no idea what _he_ thought.

She was still mulling over her options when the goddess decided to take matters into her own hands. During one of their bouts with the Kingdom soldiers, the Death Knight had the gall to get an arrow to the arm. Since she was still one of the best medics in the Monastery base, that meant she was forced to patch him up. When all she wanted to do was tear him open for making her look so foolish.

She managed to keep her composure through the process in the infirmary. Somehow. They both got through the majority of the operation without sharing a single word. After plucking all the loose shards of the tip out of his arm, she gladly walked over to her medical kit and took her sweet time looking for gauze.

“Never seen him in the infirmary before now, and now he's suddenly weak enough to need treatment.” she muttered carefully under her breath.

_You know_, she thought, absentmindedly skirting her hand through the box, _you could still tear him __**a new one.**_

She paused in her procrastination and thought back to the procedure again. “_He_ never said a single word either. _He_ even avoided my gaze since arriving in the room.” she whispered to herself. “He's nervous too! Perfect, I have a second chance.”

She walked back over to him with gauze in hand, confidence flowing back into her steps. “So,” she started, as Jeritza's eyes widened at the sudden influx of conversation. “Let's try this again.”

Finally meeting her caramel eyes with his intimidating cobalt, he sombrely said. “You want me to apologize again.”

“Bingo!” she chirped, as she approached him to wind the gauze over his wound. “But I don't think you apologized properly the first time.”

Jeritza was once again caught in the net of conversation, but this time—as the sunlight filtered in through the glass window—he was much more in control of himself. “I tried,” he started to explain.

“You didn't try hard enough,” Manuela cut him off as she pulled hard on the end of the gauze. “Scratch that. You weren't sincere enough. I don't think attempted murder victims deserved half-assed apologies.”

He gritted his teeth in pain. He had been debating whether or not to approach her again ever since that night, but he wanted to prevent another incident that would endanger her. But as she stood in front of him, finally loosening the force of the gauze, he used his good arm to slide something along the table.

“What's this?” Manuela questioned aloud, turning to face the object. She was skeptical, until she picked it up, nearly dropping the gauze in the process.

“It's payment for your dress.” Jeritza explained, not daring to face her in the event he somehow infuriated her more. “Or part of it will be payment for your dress. I don't know how much things like that cost, so I brought my wallet for you to pick out the total. You could also pick one out for your wine bottle, if you want. Just don't barge into my room with it again.”

Manuela was stunned. She put down the gauze as she tossed the wallet over in her hand. “Wow, how does a general gain that much spending money? I thought you only cared about 'the hunt' from what people in the Monastery say.”

Manuela still couldn't correlate to the two images she had of the man in front of her. One that cackled in demonic glee as the blade pierced her stomach, and the one who trusted someone who hated him with the contents of his entire wallet.

Jeritza bit back the argument brewing on his tongue. He forcefully swallowed the words, but new ones shot back up. Before he could stop them, a mournful, “I'm sorry,” escaped from his lips to his surprise.

The words tumbled out like a waterfall as he continued. “I do not want to be the monster the world views me as. I wish the urge to see blood spill across the floor didn't exist in me. But it does. I can't stop it. It is inevitable. And you were a unfortunate victim caught up in my bloody storm. I'm not apologizing just so you will stop asking for one. Though you are acting like a pesky fly in your pursuit of regret. I was simply...” he paused, taking in the weight of his words. “...rubbed the wrong way by your behaviour last night when I was already approaching a bad place. This apologize is sincere, at least for myself. Whether you accept is up to you. Are you willing to trust the words coming from the body of a vicious hunter?”

Manuela was stunned into confusion. This man seemed completely different. Did he change? No, or he would have put down the armour of the monster he supposedly despises. But from all the apologizes she heard from all sorts of men, her instincts detected nothing but the truth.

“I'm not sure I can call you a 'vicious hunter' with that vulnerable display,” She laughed in spite of herself, her mind flashing back to the pain surging through her gut stronger than Thoron. “It's like the Death Knight is merely your role in a play.” she said. “A mask to bottle all your negative emotions behind.”

She flipped through the wallet and tossed it back on the table, having taken 20 dollars shy of what a new dress would cost. “I'll accept this apology,” she decided. “It doesn't seem to come from the killer himself, but it's the closest I'll probably get.”

“I'll be even nicer and give you a second chance to not hate your guts,” she continued, walking towards the door. “As long as you don't try to pull anything on me again.”

A feeling washed over Jeritza, but he couldn't tell what it was. All he knew was his mind was more at ease than it had been in years, and his body relaxed even deeper than in his “sleep”. Once he got back to his room, he would finally try to get a good rest. Wait—

“Manuela,” he called out, gesturing a hand to the forgotten gauze.

“Oh right!” she exclaimed, running back to finish the procedure. Thank the goddess the bleeding had already stanched.

“Thank you,” he whispered, as she pretended not to hear, a light blush coating her face.

“Didn't it hurt drinking that much?” he asked, trying to be friendly. Yet, he was met with a slight smack to his bad arm.

“I don't like what you're implying there.” She finally cut the gauze. _Moment over, I guess._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Another fic down. Though I think it will be a bit before I post anything else. Oh well *shrugs*.

**Author's Note:**

> I finally settled on an idea and finished the first chapter (insteadofactualliferesponsibilities). This Support chain will only go up to B-Rank though. I think Manuela deserves better than trying to date a man that brutally stabbed her.
> 
> The next & final chapter should be up within a few days.


End file.
